


The Ultimate Harry Potter Canon Analysis Master Fic

by SpaceSeaGirl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Analysis, Character Analysis, Essays
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-08-14
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-15 06:27:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 15,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11800320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceSeaGirl/pseuds/SpaceSeaGirl
Summary: A Ravenclaw girl relentlessly analyzes the sum total of the Harry Potter series and all its main Pottermore moments.  Features chapter by chapter complete textual and character study. Good for writing use if you so choose.





	1. Preface

Preface

So, confession. I’ve been into the Harry Potter fandom a long time. And as a Ravenclaw, I am relentlessly obsessed with analysis. I have seen so much Harry Potter analysis on the Internet. Some of it is very bad and a lot of it is very good.

BUT THAT’S JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH ANYMORE.

I am going to do something that only a Ravenclaw obsessed with Harry Potter would do. I am going to relentlessly and personally analyze absolutely every Harry Potter chapter, canon relevant Pottermore quiz, and canon relevant Pottermore moment EVER. And this is the space in which I do that.

Chapter titles will be referred to by book and canon chapter. 

A few caveats: For me, the series ends in that final scene after Voldemort dies. I will not be discussing the epilogue or Cursed Child, and I certainly will not be discussing Fantastic Beasts - at least, not in this series and not yet. Nor will I be using any other extra books or outside sources. So while all canon-relevant Pottermore info will appear, once Voldemort is dead and Peeves has sung his song, for me the story ends.

This analysis can be used in many ways. I personally will be using it - once I have finished my long journey - to write better Harry Potter fanfic. But you can use or even contest my analysis in any way that you choose.

This is just my personal take on the series in its entirety.


	2. Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived (Part One)

Philosopher’s Stone, Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived (Part One)

Weirdly enough, I’m going to start this analysis with something from Pottermore. We are introduced to the Dursleys in this chapter, correct? Well here is what JK Rowling has to say about the making of their home: Number Four, Privet Drive, Little Whinging.

First, their street is called “Privet” after the privet bush, which makes neat hedges around many English gardens and which JK associates with suburban life. JK meant to invoke not only suburbia but enclosure with this name - hedges enclose the homes they surround from the outside world and the Dursleys also in some ways ensconce themselves from the outside world. The Dursleys are determined to separate themselves not only from the wizarding world but from all people who are not middle class - or, presumably, above middle class. JK calls them “smug” in their enjoyment of their middle class lifestyle, “smugness” being defined as “having or showing an excessive pride in oneself or one’s achievements.” So not only are the Dursleys proud of their achievements - they are excessively so, almost obsessively focused on them.

Even “Little Whinging” is a play, “whinging” being a British English term for “complaining or whining.” Again, this fits the Dursleys for JK - she calls them “sniffy” and “parochial,” parochial people being narrow-minded. The emphasis on British English emphasizes very proper English people.

The Dursleys’ house is described as big and square, because of Uncle Vernon’s status as company director. So we also have corporate housing playing a hand here - the house is big, indicating some significant money, but it’s square, which I take to mean as a bit uniform and lifeless. The Dursleys’ house is number four because, for no particular reason, JK sees the number four as “a hard and unforgiving number.” Therefore, it stands to reason that she sees the Dursleys as hard and unforgiving people.

Now we get into canon itself. It is important to note that although it is in third person, every bit of this series is from the close perspective of someone - usually Harry. This first bit, however, is from the perspective of Vernon Dursley. I will therefore be analyzing him in this section as well as the text.

First, he calls he and his wife “Mr and Mrs Dursley.” He never even mentally refers to his wife by her own given name, nor does he refer to himself by his own given name. For Vernon Dursley, their status is more important than who they are as individuals. They are the appropriate husband-and-wife unit. They are “Mr and Mrs Dursley, of number four, Privet Drive.” This is what carries weight to him.

Vernon speaks for both of them in this first bit. He insists that they are proud of being “perfectly normal, thank you very much.” Here we see not only pride in being ordinary, but a bit of snobbishness; you can practically hear the snooty voice and the tight, proper London English accent. In more of this snooty accented way, they consider anything strange or mysterious “nonsense,” apparently a bad word for them, preferring to shut anything unexpected, unexplained, or unusual out of their lives entirely. Interestingly, he also talks about expectations in here - that others expect Vernon to be normal is just as important to him as the fact that he is, and the same personal rule applies for him to the rest of his family.

Vernon is the director of Grunnings, a firm which makes drills. He describes himself by his corporate job first. He then describes himself as “big and beefy,” which is a very complimentary way of describing a big, gruff, muscular sort of man. He complains that he has very little neck, but the fact that he has an extra-large mustache seems to be used to counterbalance this effect. I’m not sure which is most amusing - that Vernon describes himself as muscular, that Vernon grew his mustache extra large to make up for his tiny neck, or that Vernon has self consciousness issues with the size of certain parts of his anatomy.

Petunia, on the other hand, is described by Vernon by her appearance first and her profession isn’t mentioned at all. She’s not even described as a housewife. Vernon seems to take it for granted that any proper wife of his would be a housewife in the first place. He says first that she’s “thin and blonde” - both considered conventional desirable traits - but second complains that she has “nearly twice the usual amount of neck.” Again the focus on what’s usual. Her neck’s only saving grace for Vernon is that it’s useful, as she spends so much of her time craning over garden fences, spying on the neighbors. Vernon doesn’t seem to find anything wrong with this and the word “spying” even adds an important, mysterious aura to the work. What the neighbors are doing and saying must be carefully kept an eye on.

So here we get our first independent characterization of Petunia. In this act, her husband no longer speaks for her; we can define her as nosy, gossipy, and obsessed with what the neighbors say and think. Does anyone else see this act of Petunia’s as creepy? Because I do. Can you imagine if your somewhat neurotic, perfectionistic neighbor was one day seen peeking over the garden fence and spying on you during a conversation on the phone or with your family?

The Dursleys have a small son called Dudley and in their opinion there is no finer boy anywhere. So there’s obvious pride for their son here - he is beloved as the best son in the entire world, which is not an uncommon parenting sentiment. See the emphasis on “fine.” Definitions spring to mind such as “high quality” and “first rate” - Dudley is described as an object which completes their home, the same way they would describe a particularly excellent and expensive bottle of wine. All of Dudley’s treatment in the future must be seen through this lens. The Dursleys’ house is sheltered and perfect and so is the son that completes its picture.

Vernon claims that the Dursleys have everything they want. This is a big claim to make for his entire family - Vernon assumes that his wife and son simply want all that he wants, which is what is right in front of them. But they also have a secret, he says, and “their greatest fear” (again, the inclusion of everyone else in his fear is very presumptuous) is that somebody will discover it. He (and his family, he says) find the idea of anyone discovering their connection to the Potters simply unbearable.

So Vernon’s future actions must be seen through this lens, too. For Vernon, people simply knowing that the Potters exist and are related to the Dursleys is too much for him to handle.

He calls Lily “Mrs Potter” and says that she is Petunia’s sister, but they haven’t actually seen each other in several years. For Vernon, any written contact does not seem to matter; what comforts him is that Petunia never actually meets her sister face to face. Petunia pretends to everyone that she is an only child - another snippet of her - and Vernon says it’s because Lily and her husband, whom he does not refer to even by title and whom he calls useless, are as unlike the Dursleys “as it was possible to be.” He says this like it is a sin, being unlike him, and insists that the Potters are as unlike him as anyone can be.

Again, he speaks on behalf of his family. He says he shudders in horror when contemplating what the neighbors would say if the Potters were ever to arrive in the street - here, the perceptions of others come into play again. The Dursleys know that the Potters have a small son, too, but the Dursleys have never even gone to visit and meet their nephew. In fact, Vernon considers the boy, whom he does not refer to by name, as another good reason for keeping the Potters away; he doesn’t want Dudley anywhere near “a child like that,” as if Harry is some bizarre creature carrying an infectious disease. Vernon claims not to want “mixing,” a somewhat loaded term in politics.

Does this matter? Have you seen how political JK can get? It matters.

Petunia and Vernon wake up one Tuesday, which is when the story starts. The day is described as “dull” and “grey” with cloudy skies. There are two ways to interpret this - either Vernon doesn’t like cloudy days or, far more interesting, he privately finds the ordinary humdrum of his life to be rather dull and grey as well. It is stated the the day seems completely normal, with nothing outside indicating that “strange and mysterious things” - the very words Vernon just called nonsense - will soon be happening all over Britain.

Vernon hums upstairs as he picks out his most boring tie for work - apparently he goes for the boring ties on purpose when it comes to Grunnings, which I find funny because it implies Vernon must have “fun” ties as well and what do those look like? Also he admits to very plain things being boring, which is something in and of itself. Petunia is described as “happy” - she gossips downstairs, presumably over the phone, as she tries to get Dudley in his high chair.

Here’s where things get interesting for a moment. Dudley is outright described as “screaming” - throwing a horrible fit. He’s also struggling to keep from being strapped into the high chair. Petunia is described as “wrestling” him in there, a very violent descriptive word. So does Petunia keep herself from scolding her son’s tantrums to the point where she has to risk physically injuring him to get him into his high chair? Also, if I had a child who was screaming like that, the first thing I would do is suspect there was something wrong. Do the Dursleys not want to admit that their perfect boy ever has anything wrong with him? Is Dudley “screaming” considered normal and never looked into?

None of the Dursleys notice a large, tawny owl flutter past a window of the house.

Vernon seems to keep very careful time in his daily schedule. At exactly half past eight, presumably as per usual, he picks up his briefcase and pecks Petunia on the cheek. Pecking is a very dry, chaste kiss, specifically defined as carrying the very minimum of effort. There does not seem to be much open physical passion or affection in the Dursley marriage, not even here while they’re both still young parents and relatively newly married.

Vernon then tries to kiss Dudley goodbye on the cheek - “kiss” is used instead of “peck” here, implying more open affection, so he is capable of that. He misses Dudley’s cheek, however, as Dudley moves away from him. Dudley is now having a tantrum and throwing his baby cereal at the kitchen walls. We do not see Petunia react to this, but we do see Vernon chuckle, call Dudley a “little tyke” with fond affection, and then promptly walk out of the house and leave the entire kitchen mess to his wife. Maybe it’s just not worth being late for work, maybe he never helps in cleaning the house. Either way, he leaves all that to Petunia and then just walks right outside without even checking in with her.

Petunia doesn’t seem angry later, either, implying this behavior was totally expected from Vernon. Vernon only uses “little tyke” when his son is a child and he’s fond of something his son is doing, so he may even see the tantrum as the sign of a healthy, boisterous boy full of important manly things like testosterone and confidence.

Vernon gets into his car, backs out of number four’s driveway, and drives down to the end of his road. On the corner of the street, he sees a cat reading a map - looks away - registers what he just saw and whirls around to look again. He still sees the tabby cat standing on the corner of Privet Drive, but there is no longer any map. Vernon assumes the map never existed and wonders what could have been going through his head; trick of the light, he decides, immediately tossing out the idea that someone as stable and ordinary as him could have been hallucinating.

Vernon and the cat stare at each other, seemingly for a while, an image I’ve always found rather funny.

Vernon drives around the corner and up the road, watching the cat in his rearview mirror. It is looking at the sign that says Privet Drive, and his first instinct turns out to be correct - that the cat must be reading the sign just like it was checking the map. But then he stops and second-guesses himself. Cats logically can’t read maps or signs, so he shakes himself a little and stops thinking about the cat. Driving out of suburbia and toward the city, he instead puts his mind on a large order of drills he is hoping to get that day.

This seems to be his usual order of thoughts during the day. Vernon Dursley’s head must be a very dull place to spend time indeed.

But today, on the edge of the city, he gets stuck in the usual early morning traffic jam. And as he’s sitting there, trapped, he can’t help but notice something else. There seem to be a lot of strangely dressed people about, he notes - strangeness being one of the things it is already said Vernon despises. The people are dressed in cloaks. 

Vernon puts people who dress in funny clothes and people like the Potters on relatively the same equal level, which is pretty extreme. He hates “young people’s” clothes and “new fashions.” (He sounds like an angry old man telling young kids to get off his lawn.) He supposes that is what this is.

He drums his fingers on the steering wheel, now apparently getting annoyed, and his eyes fall on a huddle of cloaked people standing quite close by. He calls them “weirdos” in his own mind, a quick jump from new young fashion, and sees that they are whispering excitedly together. Vernon feels deep rage when he sees that a couple of them aren’t young at all - he sees a man older than he is wearing an emerald green cloak and this sets off a fit of “rage.”

“Rage” - see definition “violent, uncontrollable anger.” He says the odd man has “nerve” - see definition “impudent,” which means “not showing due respect for another person.”

I call attention to this because it is the first time we ever see Vernon get angry, and sure enough, it’s over a seemingly innocent bout of strangeness - someone exhibiting what he sees to be a new fashion. Does he go over and start yelling at them? Get out of his car? No, they are strangers and that would look odd, he would be holding people up on the highway. But he does feel “violent, uncontrollable anger” - and immediately assumes he is in the right because the “odd” person is not showing Vernon and upright society the “respect” Vernon feels they are due. Strangeness itself is here seen as a sign of nerve, or impudent disrespect.

Now think about this in the context of Harry Potter.

Then Vernon immediately calms down when he thinks of something else. He thinks that these people are probably collecting for some charity or organization, that this is probably some “silly stunt.” His rage cools and automatically all is well. Charity is a perfectly respectable thing to collect for, no one is really being odd at all, society is preserved, and the anger evaporates. The traffic moves on and a few minutes later, Vernon arrives in the Grunnings parking lot with his mind back on that next promotion, that next shipment of drills.

Whenever I do a close reading of Vernon’s perspective here, I almost wonder whether he has some sort of disorder. This idea would be anathema to him; I don’t think he and Petunia would ever accept the idea that anyone in their house is less than ordinary and perfect. But does he? He exhibits this almost manic obsession with everything in his surrounding environment being perfectly familiar all the time. No totally sane person feels “violent rage” just because they see a new and unfamiliar fashion on the street, and the few who do certainly don’t immediately calm down when they “realize” it’s all an act, everything is perfectly familiar, and no one is really being odd at all.

Undiagnosed obsessive compulsive or extreme anxiety seem to be the most likely possible candidates. Autism also can cause an obsession with familiarity in one’s surroundings, though Vernon would have to be extremely high-functioning. Or alternately, it could be nothing. I don’t know. But I’m curious. Interestingly in terms of Dudley, autism even when high-functioning can also cause fits of screaming and meltdowns.

Of course, this is all just conjecture on my part.

Vernon always sits with his back to the window in his office on the ninth floor - no enjoying the view or, worse, daydreaming out the window for him. He concentrates very well on drills all morning, but would probably have been distracted if he’d ever bothered to look out the window behind him - owls keep swooping past in broad daylight, and people down in the street notice them. They point and gaze, open-mouthed, as owl after owl speeds overhead. Most of them have never seen an owl even at nighttime. Vernon, however, has a “perfectly normal,” owl-free morning.

I find the idea of Vernon, working at his desk, not noticing owls swooping right behind him out the window to be highly amusing. I find even more amusing the idea that he yells at so many people in this next section because they keep gaping uselessly out the window behind him.

And Vernon does yell at people - five of them. His employees must hate him. He makes several telephone calls that he’s proud of purely because they make him feel “important.” Then he shouts at more people. Strangely? Yelling at people seems to make Vernon feel great about himself. He seems to have this constant, built-in sense of nervous rage that is only alleviated when he feels it is socially acceptable for him to yell at people. So, notice, he yells at his employees but not people on the street. In the same way - keep this in mind for the future - he may be equally prone to taking outside stressors out on people in the home, particularly “strange” ones that he already sees as “impudent and disrespectful.”

He also likes feeling “important,” and yelling at and disciplining people from a big office chair (or as the adult in the home) may help him with that. I feel this is also worthy of note.

At lunchtime, Vernon decides to “stretch his legs.” For him, this consists of walking across the street and buying himself a sweet, sticky, gluten-y bun from the bakery. (Hint: Harry calls Vernon big, but he never exactly calls him muscular.) He’d forgotten all about the people in cloaks until he passes a group of them next to the baker’s.

He gives them an angry look as he passes - but, again, he does not approach or say anything. This he would consider socially inappropriate. It all just builds up in there. He doesn’t know why, but they make him “uneasy” - see definition “anxious, uncomfortable, troubled.” This seems to be that sixth sense Vernon usually ignores about magic, and it is the source of his anger.

Which is extremely telling both in light of my new Vernon-and-Dudley theory and in light of the times they both lose their temper throughout the rest of the series. I feel the need to add that.

This bunch are whispering excitedly, too, and though he looks he can’t see a single collecting tin. He begins to doubt his comforting charity theory. Then on his way back past them, clutching a large donut in a bag, he “catches” a few words of what they are saying. (“Catches,” not “overhears.” Vernon seems to have been trying to listen despite himself.)

“The Potters, that’s right, that’s what I heard -”

“- yes, their son, Harry -”

Vernon stops “dead” - a very distinct word reminiscent of heart-stopping. Pure fear “floods” him - flooding indicating someone drowning, feeling unable to breathe, in the midst of a particular emotion. He looks back at the whisperers (now not weirdos, but whisperers) as if he wants to say something to them, but he thinks better of it.

He runs back across the road, goes as fast as he can up to his office, snaps at his secretary not to disturb him, seizes his office telephone, and is almost finished dialing his home number… when he changes his mind. Over and over, in this first chapter, Vernon fails to act. He second-guesses the weird things he sees. He second-guesses talking to the wizards and witches standing not two feet from him. And now, this final time, he second-guesses telling Petunia his theory.

He puts the receiver back down (this is one of our first indicators the story is definitely set in the 90’s) and he strokes his mustache, thinking about it. He decides he’s being “stupid.” Potter and Harry are both common names. He is sure there are lots of people called Potter who have a son called Harry. Vernon doesn’t even know for sure if his nephew’s name is Harry. He’s never met the boy. It could be Harvey. It could be Harold.

Vernon goes on to claim he’s thinking of Petunia - who always gets “so upset” (here probably simply meaning the “unhappy” definition) at any mention of her sister, and with the way her sister was, Vernon doesn’t blame her. If he’d had a sister “like that,” he imagines he’d probably feel the same way.

But let’s not kid ourselves. The person Vernon is really protecting here is himself.

He doesn’t even seem to consider Petunia until that very last section. Even the number he dials isn’t “Petunia’s number” but simply “his home phone number” - home usually being a comforting idea. Vernon is reassuring himself. It’s clear if you read back through the text. He runs and doesn’t think of Petunia. Dials the phone and doesn’t think of Petunia. Changes his mind and doesn’t think of Petunia. Reassures himself and still doesn’t think of Petunia until he needs better justification not to talk about what troubles him.

But he doesn’t entirely manage to reassure himself. He still can’t stop thinking about “the people in cloaks.”

He finds it a lot harder to concentrate on his usual drills that afternoon. When he leaves the building at exactly five o’clock, he is still absent-minded with worry; he hasn’t stopped turning it all over in his head. He is so out of it that he walks straight into someone just outside the door.

It’s a tiny old man who stumbles and almost falls. Vernon says one single, short word: “Sorry.” Nothing indicates alarm, concern, or guilt. He doesn’t try to help the man straighten; he doesn’t even reach out a hand as the little old man starts to fall.

The little old man rights himself. A few seconds later, Vernon finally registers that the man is wearing a violet cloak. Vernon expects the little old man to be upset with him, but he is not. In fact, he smiles and starts talking to Vernon. Vernon is mortified at the man’s squeaky voice, which makes “passersby stare.” 

The little old man calls him “dear sir” and tells him not to be sorry at all, for nothing could upset the old man today. They all should rejoice, for “You Know Who” has gone at last. Even “Muggles” like Vernon Dursley should apparently be celebrating this “happy, happy day!”

The little old man hugs Vernon Dursley around the middle and walks off, an image I’ve always found rather funny.

Vernon stands very still in that exact spot. He is bothered by two things: First, he was hugged by a complete stranger. Second, he was called a “Muggle, whatever that was.”

Vernon is “rattled” (see “nervous, worried, irritated”). He walks very fast to his car and sets off for home, hoping he is imagining things - hallucinating, presumably. This is a sharp dive from this morning. He has never hoped this before - Vernon sees any sort of hallucination as a sign of simple imagination and he “doesn’t approve of imagination.”

As he pulls into the driveway of number four, he is in a bad mood. What he sees doesn’t improve it - the tabby cat from this morning is now sitting on his garden wall. He is sure it is the same one, because it has the same markings around its eyes. (Again, Vernon demonstrates an intuitive understanding of the odd things he sees around him, as well as in this case a fine eye for detail. It seems to be his own obsession with normality that always does him in.)

Vernon shouts at the cat to “shoo!” It doesn’t move, but it does give him a very “stern” (“serious,” “unrelenting”) McGonagall-type stare. Vernon’s first frightened thought, especially after the day he’s had, is to wonder if this is “normal” cat behavior.

He tries to “pull himself together.” (Thus implying he feels scattered, frightened, out of control.) He lets himself into the house. He is still determined not to mention anything to Petunia.

Petunia had a “nice, normal” day. She mostly talks over dinner - about the woman next door’s problems with her daughter, about Dudley’s new word. (“Won’t!” Even the word is bratty and defiant.) Vernon tries to act “normally.”

I should really go back and count how many times Vernon says things like “usual,” “normal,” and “ordinary” in his own head just in these seven and half pages. Also how many times he indicates approving “niceness” in relation to those terms. Really, the man is obsessed.

Dudley is put to bed and Vernon goes into the living room in time to catch the last report on the evening news. (Petunia is still out in the kitchen and Vernon is never mentioned helping her clean up, so I assume she does all the kitchen cleanup. She even brings tea out for them afterward.) 

The evening news announces two pieces of information: That all the owls in the country seem to have suddenly changed their sleeping pattern and have now been seen all day flying around in broad daylight with no apparent explanation. And that shooting stars have been appearing all over Britain, also with no satisfying explanation.

Amusingly, the newscaster keeps predicting rain and it never happens, nor do the wizards and witches seem to expect for it to happen. This brings me to - what is the wizarding world’s relationship to weather and astronomical phenomena? Why do they study astronomy? How can their magic cause shooting stars? And McGonagall hears this newscast, so why does she not seem more bothered by leaving Harry outside all night? Sure enough, rain never comes - but does she know it won’t come?

Anyway, all this news is chaos to someone who feels extreme anxiety and rage over a new fashion sense on the street.

Vernon sits completely still in his armchair, as if frozen solid. He goes over it all in his mind: shooting stars all over Britain, owls flying by daylight, mysterious people in cloaks all over the place, and a whisper about the Potters. Then Petunia comes into the living room carrying two cups of tea, and I’m going to be charitable and say Vernon has good intentions here. He realizes he can’t leave his wife entirely in the dark, feels some sense of duty to warn her about what has occurred, and knows he has to say “something.”

What happens next is interesting. Vernon is openly “nervous.” In this one area, which is anything concerning Petunia’s sister and her world and its potential effects, big angry testosterone Vernon is afraid of Petunia. In this one place, Vernon seems afraid of his wife. In fact, we haven’t seen Petunia afraid of Vernon at all yet - Vernon doesn’t treat her badly or seem to take anything out on his prized wife and son - and in this first contest of true emotional power, the balance falls on Petunia’s side and not on Vernon’s as we might expect.

He clears his throats and after a couple of “ers” and false starts, he finally asks Petunia if she’s heard from her sister lately. Petunia looks as he expected - shocked and angry. They normally pretend she doesn’t have a sister.

She’s very short and sharp as she responds. She hasn’t. Why?

Vernon retreats into an outright mumble, trailing off repeatedly and losing his argument, only naming bits and pieces of information. Owls… shooting stars… funny looking people in town… He is clearly genuinely frightened, maybe not for his own safety but definitely for the happiness of their relationship. How angry exactly does Petunia get about her sister? (So here we have two elements: Petunia’s anger with her sister and Vernon’s neuroticism with normality and need to assert angry, anxious power over weaker others.)

Maybe “owls” should have tipped Petunia off considering she’s sent and received correspondence by owls, but it doesn’t. Then again, Vernon also must know by now that wizards always send things through owl post, for we learn later Petunia does keep in written contact with her sister; Petunia might expect Vernon to go postal every time he sees an owl, if she knows him and his neuroticism as well as she must. In all other cases, Vernon is being very obtuse. An owl, some shooting stars on the news, and some strangely dressed people in town, she must think, sheltered in her own home and not paying attention to the news herself - what’s the big deal there?

She asserts this with an angry: “So?”

Vernon mumbles out that he just thought, maybe, it was something to do with… you know… her crowd. Petunia’s sister’s crowd. (Even before Harry appears, saying things like “wizard,” “witch,” and “magic” is off limits in the Dursley house.)

Petunia purses her lips in silent disapproval and takes a sip of tea. But she still must be dangerous, for Vernon decides he doesn’t “dare” tell her he heard the name Potter. Instead he tries to be casual. He asks for his nephew’s age (same as Dudley’s) and then for his nephew’s name - Howard, isn’t it?

Petunia’s reply is very proper, upper-crust scathing: “Harry. Nasty, common name, if you ask me.”

So here we have Petunia claiming a snobby dissociation with “common” people - and with “ordinary” names. Another bit we see from her. Of course, we could also consider the idea that Petunia might hate Lily’s son’s name even if it was also Dudley. 

Still, we get a complete picture of Petunia by this point - a gossipy, nosy, somewhat neurotic, neighbor-obsessed housewife, not interested in world affairs, overly indulgent toward her prized son, fully going along with gender roles, and very stiff, snooty upper crust, capable of much silent pursing of the lips and scathing comments. She is very angry with her sister and capable of silencing even Vernon in relation to that subject, she becomes so frigid and frightening (which may be an important reason why they take Harry in).

Vernon meanwhile knows that Harry is the name he heard in the street today and it’s “horrible” - his heart sinks as his doubts come full to bear. “Oh, yes,” he says, as if absently. “Yes, I quite agree.”

And they don’t speak another word on the subject, going upstairs to bed instead.

Here I have an interesting question: What if the roles had been reversed? The only reason Vernon has all these doubts is because he’s the breadwinner out there seeing and doing things in the world. Petunia is the skeptic because she might not have turned on the news or left her own street for the entire day. If Petunia had a job, even alongside Vernon, would she also have noticed everything and been more canny about it, having more experience?

It is impossible to say.

While Petunia is in the bathroom attached to their bedroom, Vernon “creeps” softly and silently, as if trying not to be noticed, to their bedroom window and squints down into the front garden. The cat is still there, another weird thing. Again he gets it right intuitively but second-guesses himself: The cat is described as staring down Privet Drive “as though it were waiting for something.”

He wonders again if he’s “imagining things” - hallucinating or being delusional. Could all this have anything to do with the Potters? Vernon is not worried about the Potters at all, let’s be clear. He is only worried about how this could affect him. He doesn’t want it to get out that they, the Dursleys, are related to a witch and wizard. Again, he finds that thought “unbearable.”

The Dursleys get into bed. Petunia falls asleep quickly, but Vernon lays awake. His thoughts won’t stop racing from all the fear and anxiety today. He tries to “comfort” himself with the most relaxing thought he can think of - that all this won’t affect him. No matter what the Potters are involved in, there is no reason for them to come near the Dursleys. The Potters apparently “know very well” (have been told and shown on numerous occasions) how little the Dursleys think of them, in fact of all wizardkind. So he can’t see how and Petunia (at last, in this moment of clinging to them as a connected unit against the world, he calls her almost fondly by her first name) could get mixed up in anything that might be going on.

He yawns, turns over, and falls asleep, but his sleep is an “uneasy” one. Again, with those keen instincts, he doesn’t fully believe himself. He is also, it is briefly noted, very wrong - it can affect Vernon and it is about to. (I don’t see this as the author narrator, but as a future Vernon himself. He talks about strange and mysterious things about to happen one other time in this section.) In short, his worst fears are about to become realized. Everything afterward should be filtered through that lens.

This is the last we directly see of the Dursleys before Harry and the last time we ever get anything from Vernon’s perspective. I have one last note, which is that Vernon seems most fond of Petunia when she agrees with him on everything wrong and fearful about the world. He likes her because she agrees with him on all the “weirdos” in life - beliefs she perhaps agrees with out of anger toward her sister, not fear like him as Vernon seems to believe.

Vernon Dursley wouldn’t see himself as fearful, assuming, and neurotic, but I do believe he may be one of the most consistently fearful and self-doubting characters in the entire series.


	3. Philosopher's Stone, Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived (Part Two)

Philosopher's Stone, Chapter One: The Boy Who Lived (Part Two)

Now we get to the second part of chapter one, which is from an entirely different perspective - that of the wizards leaving Harry Potter with the Dursleys. This point of view is a little harder to suss out, but through some detective work I have deduced that the point of view here is McGonagall’s - except for in the very last couple of paragraphs when the point of view briefly switches to Dumbledore’s, but we’ll get to that.

How do I know the perspective is McGonagall’s - the cat’s? Because that’s the only perspective that makes sense. To suddenly start writing the story from an objective author narrator perspective would make no sense and break the flow of the story. Hagrid isn’t there for the entire thing. And Dumbledore knows too much - showing this scene from Dumbledore’s point of view would spoil basically the entire series for us, and sure enough we get a great deal of description of Dumbledore’s pointed silences but no actual direct thought from him.

So I’m going with McGonagall, who starts out of course as “the cat.”

Despite the late hour, the cat on the Dursleys’ garden wall shows no sign of drowsiness. She sits very still and barely blinks, staring at one particular spot in a far corner of Privet Drive. She doesn’t quiver when a car door slams on the next street, nor when two owls swoop overhead. It becomes nearly midnight and still she won’t so much as shift.

McGonagall seems to take great pride in this, in a subtle sort of way. She describes in great detail how she knows exactly where to look, refuses to become sleepy, refuses to blink, refuses to move. McGonagall’s nerves of iron, stony resolve, and steely determination seem to matter a great deal to her. And we know it’s stony resolve, because she tells us later in the chapter that sitting on that garden wall all day was actually deeply uncomfortable, perhaps even painful. But she stays there, “still as a statue,” on principle.

Suddenly, a man appears on the corner the cat had been watching, appears suddenly and silently like “he’d just popped out of the ground.” At last, the cat moves. Her tail twitches and her eyes narrow.

McGonagall is shown immediately to understand much more about this sort of Muggle, upright, stern place than Dumbledore seems to, though how she knows so much more we are not told in this chapter. She knows nothing like this man, Dumbledore, has ever been seen on Privet Drive before. We get a description: tall, thin, and very old with a silver beard long enough to have been tucked into his belt; long robes, a purple cloak that sweeps the ground, high heeled and buckled boots; his light blue eyes sparkle behind half moon glasses and his nose is very long and crooked “as though it had been broken at least twice.”

Two things from this. First, we get from that last bit that McGonagall already knows a great deal about Dumbledore’s past, a past we ourselves don’t get until the seventh book - sure enough, Pottermore tells us later that she and Dumbledore have been good friends for quite a while. Why do I say this? Because no one else ever seems to notice that Dumbledore’s nose looks like it has been broken but never healed properly. McGonagall ain’t telling, but she knows. Second, Dumbledore is gay. I don’t know if that’s in Pottermore, but it is one of those rare things so incontrovertibly canon by now that I feel I have to mention it. So here we get hints of Dumbledore, indicated further in his sense of fashion throughout the series, as colorfully and flamboyantly gay.

So we get the man’s name as Albus Dumbledore. Albus Dumbledore doesn’t seem to realize, though McGonagall knows, that he has “just arrived in a street where everything from his name to his boots was unwelcome.” She knows this not only from her own past experiences, of course, but because she has been watching this street all day. 

When he appears, he is rummaging through his cloak casually, looking for something. But after a few moments she knows that he realizes he’s being watched, because he looks up suddenly at her in her cat form - she’s still staring at him openly and silently on the garden wall from the other end of the street. Dumbledore seems amused by this, though McGonagall is not sure why. He chuckles and she hears him mutter, “I should have known.”

We can deduce from this that McGonagall always knows exactly where the important thing is happening, a claim strengthened throughout the rest of the series. This also strengthens the claim that McGonagall and Dumbledore know each other well - of course, we find out later they are coworkers at Hogwarts as well as friends.

He finds what he has been looking for in his inside pocket. McGonagall has apparently never seen it before, but it seems to be a silver cigarette lighter. He flicks it open, holds it up in the air, and clicks it - the nearest street lamp goes out with a little pop. He clicks it again - the next lamp flickers into darkness. Twelve times he clicks the Put-Outer, until the only lights left on the whole street are the eyes of McGonagall as a cat, watching Dumbledore.

McGonagall deduces why he has done this. Now, if anyone on the street looks out of their window - even Petunia, whom she formally calls “Mrs Dursley” and says just from a day of watching has very sharp, beady eyes (“beady,” see, “piercing”) - they won’t be able to see anything that is happening down here on the pavement.

I would like to add here that McGonagall is very formal in how she addresses everyone. Hagrid is simply Hagrid, but the Dursleys are Mr and Mrs Dursley. She herself is always Professor McGonagall - title and all, a title she seems to be very proud of. Even Dumbledore, a close friend, is a superior and therefore she never refers to him as Albus in her own head - she goes by his surname, “Dumbledore.”

Dumbledore “slips” (implying silence and casual grace) the Put Outer back inside his cloak and sets off down the street toward number four, where he sits down on the wall next to the cat. He doesn’t look at her, but after a moment he speaks to her: “Fancy seeing you here, Professor McGonagall.” It is a gentle kind of sense of irony, amused and fond, because then he turns to smile at her.

McGonagall has transformed from a cat back into a woman while he was looking away - amusingly, she notes the moment of dramatic entrance like she did it on purpose but won’t admit to that out loud because of her own dignity. She seems throughout the series very subtly proud of her cat transformation, a complex and difficult feat of magic. 

McGonagall describes herself with self-awareness as a “rather severe-looking woman” (“severe,” see “intense, strict, harsh”). She wears square glasses exactly the shape of the markings the cat had around its eyes, which we find out later is the documented thing that transfigures with her as a registered Animagus. She is wearing an emerald green cloak (she always wears this color and it is also the color of her ink), her black hair is drawn into a bun specifically and purposefully described as “tight,” and she looks “distinctly ruffled.” (“Ruffled,” see, “annoyed, put out.”)

So already McGonagall seems irritated by something.

She asks Dumbledore how he knew it was her - so perhaps her cat form is new and he has never seen it before. Did she achieve it during the war against “You Know Who” and did that factor into her decision to try for it?

Dumbledore still seems fondly amused: “My dear Professor, I have never seen a cat sit so stiffly.”

McGonagall seems almost defensive in her next statement - perhaps because of the implied quirk or perhaps because she is suspicious of fond amusement. “You’d be stiff if you’d been sitting on a brick wall all day.”

Dumbledore is surprised that she has really been here all day. He points out she could have been celebrating - he “must have passed a dozen feasts and parties on my way here.” This implies two things: first, that Apparition entails actually traveling through space past other scenes, and second, that Dumbledore has become good enough at it and knowledgeable enough to tease those scenes apart.

Professor McGonagall sniffs angrily - sniffing being a contemptuous sort of gesture, as has already been established in the text. She seems impatient as she speaks next, as though she has no patience for the people celebrating or perhaps no patience for explaining her actions. She agrees that everyone is celebrating, and does not seem happy about it - this is what irritates her. She thinks her people aren’t being careful enough. “Even the Muggles” (like most wizards and witches, she doesn’t give Muggles terribly good powers of observation) have noticed something’s going on; she heard the news report Mr Dursley watched inside with her cat ears. Flocks of owls - shooting stars - “Well, they’re not completely stupid. They were bound to notice something.”

In other words, McGonagall does consider Muggles stupid and unobservant - just not as much so as most wizarding people give them credit for. And her world, she says, is being so obvious that even a Muggle of average intelligence would have noticed the weird happenings.

There is a clear line established here, with Muggles like the Dursleys on one side and wizards and witches like McGonagall and Dumbledore on the other side. This is the first time that delineation is made and we understand it. We can also understand now that while the Dursleys see themselves as superior, so does the wizarding world.

McGonagall adds spitefully that she bets the shooting stars down in Kent was the work of Dedalus Diggle. “He never had much sense,” she says dismissively, clearly finding this to be a very poor character trait indeed - which is somewhat unusual in a wizard or witch. Good sense, intelligence, and carefulness seem to matter a great deal to McGonagall and she can be positively harsh, fiery, and impatient with those who aren’t - especially as she is always so accomplished, career oriented, proud, dignified, and tightly put together herself.

Dumbledore takes a much gentler tone. He reminds McGonagall that it would be hard to blame all those people. “They’ve had precious little to celebrate for eleven years.”

So right away, we see that something terrible has been plaguing the wizarding world for over a decade. All these strange happenings are evidence of the wizarding world celebrating its disappearance with almost legendary openness and carelessness.

Professor McGonagall acknowledges his point but still seems irritated. She insists that’s no reason to “lose our heads.” Again she emphasizes carelessness: their people being out on the streets in broad daylight, not even dressed in Muggle clothes, swapping rumors about what happened.

So we can gather that is what the Potter whispers were about.

McGonagall looks sideways at Dumbledore here, hoping he’s going to tell her something about the rumors. (Her look is specifically described as “sharp,” see “keen, harsh, clever, strong-minded.”) He says nothing, his first pointed silence, so she continues.

She says sarcastically what a thing it would be if, on the very day “You Know Who” seems to have disappeared at last, the Muggles found out about the wizarding world. Therefore, we can deduce that “You Know Who” is the disappeared thing that has been plaguing wizarding Britain. McGonagall finally asks Dumbledore directly: Is You Know Who really gone?

Dumbledore says something that only has significance later on in the text: “It certainly seems so.” A careful answer designed to reassure yet privately hedge his bets. Dumbledore does not elaborate on this point and says instead that they all have much to be thankful for. McGonagall does not seem to entirely notice this non-answer.

Dumbledore establishes himself throughout this series as cheerfully quirky and eccentric (in addition to being flamboyant). Here is the first time he does this, by offering McGonagall a tray of lemon drops magically taken from inside one of his expanding cloak pockets. McGonagall doesn’t even know what lemon drops are and Dumbledore has to explain that they are a kind of Muggle sweet he’s rather fond of. McGonagall does not think this is the moment for lemon drops and is rather cold (see “indifferent, apathetic, dispiriting”) if polite as she refuses the candies.

Then she continues on her You Know Who vein. Dumbledore keeps trying to avoid and derail her on the subject - though he clearly knows more than she does and she is aware of it - but McGonagall is persistent. She won’t let him off the hook.

She continues to say that even if You Know Who has in fact gone -

Dumbledore interrupts her actively this time, still trying to turn the conversation in another direction. He appeals to her “sensibility,” so important to her, and assumes that surely a sensible person like herself can call him by his name. He calls You Know Who “nonsense” and insists that for eleven years he has been trying to persuade people to call him by his proper name: Voldemort.

McGonagall flinches at the mere word, but Dumbledore, who is unsticking two lemon drops, at least pretends as always not to notice the flinch.

This part interests me. We know that to his face, Dumbledore always calls Voldemort “Tom.” Yet we also know that with other people, he calls him “Voldemort.” We might think this is just to hide Voldemort’s true identity, yet Dumbledore uses the name Voldemort even around people who know that Voldemort used to be called Tom Riddle. I am interested by the idea that Dumbledore secretly acknowledges Riddle has become Voldemort - a transformation marked by everything from name change to appearance and voice change; even the fan tags see them as two different characters - but he calls Voldemort “Tom” to his face just to annoy him, just to remind him how well Dumbledore knows him and his history.

Dumbledore continues, insisting that things get confusing when You Know Who is thrown around. He has never seen any reason to be frightened of saying Voldemort’s name. (It’s an interesting point, actually. There may be reason to be frightened of Voldemort himself, but a name is just a name.)

McGonagall is half exasperated, half admiring as she speaks next. She says she knows Dumbledore himself has never seen any reason to be frightened of You Know Who’s mere name. But he’s a different case. Everyone knows he’s the only one You Know -

She stops herself, as if the sensibility argument actually struck a chord with her.

Everyone knows he’s the only one Voldemort, she amends with some exasperation, was ever frightened of. So immediately we see Dumbledore as one of the most powerful wizards out there.

Dumbledore calmly calls this mere flattery. He points out that Voldemort had powers he himself will never have. McGonagall seems almost embarrassed at being so praising, but she makes the argument anyway: The only reason Dumbledore doesn’t have those powers is because he refuses to use them. She calls this decision “noble” (see “distinguished, lofty, impressive, excellent”). For McGonagall, this is definitely a matter of good versus evil.

Dumbledore says simply that it’s lucky it’s dark, because he’s blushing. This is coy modesty - Dumbledore in his more honest moments is not a particularly modest person, though he does have good reason not to be.

McGonagall seems to get fed up. She shoots Dumbledore another “sharp” look and then says that the owls are nothing next to the rumors that are flying around. She asks Dumbledore if he knows what everyone is saying - about why Voldemort has disappeared, about what finally stopped him after over a decade of terror.

McGonagall has at last reached the point that outright gives her “anxiety,” the point she most wants to discuss, the real reason she has been waiting on a cold hard wall all day. She never waited here so they could talk about how everyone’s behaving - they could have done that back at Hogwarts. Neither as a cat nor as a woman has she so far tonight fixed Dumbledore with such a piercing stare as she does right now. She makes no secret of it: she is not going to believe what “everyone” is saying until Dumbledore tells her it is true.

Dumbledore chooses another lemon drop and gives another pointed silence. From the beginning, he is characterized as someone who knows much but refuses to give off almost any outward information, not even to his trusted friends.

McGonagall presses on and tells him what everyone is saying anyway. 

They are saying that last night, Voldemort appeared in an English village called Godric’s Hollow. He went to find the Potters. The rumor - and here her speech becomes very halting from emotion - the rumor is that the Potters are dead. Double murder by Voldemort.

Dumbledore bows his head in assent. McGonagall gasps. For a couple of minutes, she is almost without speech. Seeming genuinely distraught, she keeps trailing off in utter disbelief. She calls them “Lily and James” and even more tellingly, for a moment she calls Dumbledore “Albus.” Not only does she turn to the intimacy of her friend’s first name for comfort, but she knew the Potters personally - we will find out later she taught them at Hogwarts.

She says she can’t believe it. She didn’t want to believe it. That’s why she was anxious, why she’s here. Dumbledore reaches out and pats her on the shoulder. He simply says he knows how she feels, and his voice is “heavy” (see “sorrowful, serious, dull”). If McGonagall knew the Potters at Hogwarts, we find out later that Dumbledore knew them even better.

McGonagall’s voice trembles from the weight of holding back tears as she continues speaking.

Because that’s not all the rumors say. They’re also saying Voldemort tried to kill the Potters’ infant son, Harry - giving an even darker turn to the tale. But - and here she pauses from sheer weight of disbelief - he couldn’t do it. Voldemort couldn’t manage to kill “a little boy.” No one knows why, no one knows how, it’s all deeply confusing, but the rumors are saying that when he couldn’t kill Harry Potter, Voldemort’s power somehow broke - and he somehow disappeared.

And that’s why he’s gone.

Dumbledore simply gives a silent nod. Here he is described as “glum” (see “frowning, dejected”). This is an interesting reaction. It seems to fit the tone of the moment, certainly, but Dumbledore also seems very particularly upset by Harry’s victory. Does Dumbledore know what is now to come for Harry, here when no one else does? Is that why he doesn’t seem more triumphant, the way everyone else is?

McGonagall doesn’t seem to notice, because her speech is faltering from shock.

She can’t believe this part of the story is true. After “all he’s done,” all the people Voldemort has murdered, the person his magic couldn’t manage to murder is a little boy? It seems like the strangest, most random thing to stop him. McGonagall seems genuinely amazed.

Retreating to a Christian religious epithet in this rare moment of open emotion, she asks, “How in the name of heaven did Harry survive?”

Dumbledore again gives a careful non-answer that McGonagall does not entirely seem to notice: “We can only guess. We may never know.” He, of course, has guessed, but once more he chooses not to reveal this.

I find this an interesting decision. Dumbledore suspects Voldemort’s spirit is still out there but he says nothing to anyone? He suspects how Voldemort was defeated but he never speaks up? Dumbledore from the beginning chooses to follow the Prophecy and his own plan for Voldemort’s defeat, at the expense of warning absolutely nobody else, not even his friends. How to see this? On the one hand, he’s doing the only thing he thinks will defeat Voldemort. On the other hand, people probably die as collateral damage because Dumbledore never said anything.

McGonagall pulls out a delicate, feminine lace handkerchief and dabs at her eyes (a very dignified way of wiping one’s eyes) beneath her spectacles. She refuses to cry, but her eyes are damp. Dumbledore interestingly may also be holding back tears. He does give one great sniff as he takes out a golden pocket watch and examines it.

Here, we see some more old-fashioned wizarding ornaments. While it will be stated later that some wizards wear simple, loose colored robes and cloaks (like eccentric Dumbledore or the people celebrating their own historical culture out in the streets today) and most others simply wear Muggle clothes, they all do seem to carry pocket watches and handkerchiefs. They also carry no modern technology, not even wristwatches. According to Pottermore, in typical quirky old-fashioned way, they don’t use the metric system either - they prefer imperial units.

McGonagall takes a glance at Dumbledore’s pocket watch. It’s very “odd,” she notes, even for a wizard. It has twelve hands but no numbers; instead little planets are moving around the edge. She supposes it must make sense to Dumbledore, though, because puts it back in his pocket and notes out loud that Hagrid is late. “I suppose it was he who told you I’d be here, by the way?”

We know later that Hagrid - who also works at Hogwarts - is in Dumbledore’s personal trust but not particularly good at keeping secrets. He speaks emotionally in the moment, without thinking. McGonagall probably took advantage of this because she needed to find Dumbledore and talk to him.

McGonagall admits it was Hagrid who told her. “And I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me why you’re here, of all places?” Even McGonagall, who seems a bit blind to all the secrets Dumbledore hides, does not really expect an answer.

But Dumbledore surprises her. “I’ve come to bring Harry to his aunt and uncle. They’re the only family he has left now.”

So here we learn something important - Petunia and Dudley are now Harry’s only living blood relatives. More particularly, they are also the only living blood relatives of his mother’s. Both sets of grandparents are dead and his father was an only child.

McGonagall is in disbelief. “You don’t mean - you can’t mean the people who live here?!” For the first and only time, she raises her voice, the nonsensical thing to do in this situation. She jumps to her feet and points at number four.

She tells him with intensity that he simply can’t do that. She’s been watching the Dursleys all day. Their son is terribly spoiled - she saw him kicking his mother all the way up the street, screaming for sweets - and anyway her main beef with the Dursleys is that “you couldn’t find two people who are less like us!”

This is technically true. The Dursleys are stable, dull, unimaginative, sensible, corporate, suburban, and ordinary - in other words, all the things most wizards and witches are not. Wizards and witches even stick to small businesses and live solely in cities and country villages. But it is still an interesting complaint to make, out of all the possible complaints to make about the Dursleys. It’s almost reminiscent of Vernon himself, who hates the Potters simply because they’re “nothing like him.”

McGonagall has already gotten attached to Harry Potter as an important wizard, seemingly, because she seems to protest him in particular coming to live with such Muggle people.

Dumbledore is firm in his decision, however. He says this is the best place for Harry. His aunt and uncle will be able to explain everything to him when he’s older, through a letter Dumbledore has written himself.

Here I have a rather important question. Who gave Dumbledore the authority to do any of this? He was not named as Harry’s legal guardian in the event of the Potters’ deaths and he’s technically just Hogwarts headmaster, but everyone simply defers to him as the decision-maker. Dumbledore led the Order in the fight against Voldemort. He had a personal spy in Voldemort’s army. He’s on several important Ministry councils and in several important positions. Is that why he’s allowed to make this decision? Maybe. Of course, everyone adores Dumbledore in the first part of the series.

But on a legal level, it still makes no sense. Dumbledore is not the Potters’ executor, Harry’s legal guardian, or even the Minister. Why does he have the authority to place Harry anywhere at all?

In any case, McGonagall is so faint she sits back down on the wall. She can’t believe Dumbledore honestly thinks he can explain all this in a letter - and this is from someone who lives in a world where modern communications technology literally does not exist. She goes to the heart of her argument: that the three people in that house will never understand Harry Potter. Meanwhile, in their own world he will be “famous - a legend - I wouldn’t be surprised if today was known as Harry Potter Day in the future - there will be books written about Harry - every child in our world will know his name!”

“Exactly.” Dumbledore looks at McGonagall very seriously over the top of his glasses, in a sort of condescending, all knowing, grandfatherly way. He says it would be enough to “turn any boy’s head.” He asks McGonagall to imagine the kind of person Harry would grow up to be in the wizarding world. He would be famous before he can walk and talk. He would be famous for something he probably won’t even remember.

He pleads with her to see how much better off Harry would be, growing up away from all of that “until he’s ready to take it.” Which I guess is eleven years old when training starts? Anyway, the main argument is that Harry needs to grow up being treated like a normal kid, and with the Dursleys he will be. In Dumbledore’s ideal world, Harry will grow up just another Muggle child and then, when he’s old enough to understand it, will be shown Dumbledore’s explanation letter - preferably years before he gets his Hogwarts letter.

McGonagall seems convinced by this argument and admits with difficulty that “of course” Dumbledore is right - implying that Dumbledore is usually proven right. But I see this as manipulative, because we both know Dumbledore isn’t telling McGonagall the real, main reason why Harry is being placed with the Dursleys. We also know Dumbledore realizes Harry will have a much “darker and more difficult” (his own future words) childhood than he is here implying.

McGonagall then asks how Harry is getting here. She eyes his cloak suddenly, as if she fully expects for Harry to have simply been hiding there all along - this is, after all, Dumbledore we’re talking about. But Dumbledore says that Hagrid is bringing him - hence why they’re waiting for Hagrid, who is late.

McGonagall asks with very marked and dramatic skepticism if Dumbledore thinks it “wise” to trust Hagrid with something as important as this. Dumbledore counters that he would trust Hagrid with his life. McGonagall agrees that of course his heart is in the right place - but that doesn’t change the fact that he’s “careless.” (One of McGonagall’s favorite most hated buzzwords, it seems. That’s only about the third time she’s said it.) So we can gather that McGonagall does not entirely like or trust the abilities of Hagrid.

But right about then, a low rumbling sound like a motor breaks the silence around them. It grows steadily louder as they look up and down the street for some sign of a headlight. It swells to a roar as they both look up at the sky - and a huge, flying motorcycle falls out of the air and lands on the road in front of them.

Even a huge motorcycle looks tiny compared to Hagrid, its rider. He is “almost twice as tall as a normal man” and “at least five times as wide.” McGonagall says he looks “simply too big to be allowed, and so wild.” Emphasis on the wild, of course, as it’s McGonagall. Long tangles of bushy black hair and beard hide most of his face, his hands are “the size of trash can lids,” and his feet in their leather boots “are like baby dolphins.” (Actually, Hagrid wears a lot of leather. His jacket is black leather as well.) Interestingly, McGonagall then notices “his vast, muscular arms.”

Harry for one never seems to note Hagrid’s size as pure muscle, so this observation may be unique to McGonagall. It is easy to see why McGonagall distrusts Hagrid on another level - he is her exact opposite - but there is also almost a weird note of reluctant attraction to the way she describes him, especially with that last bit of description.

Hagrid is holding a bundle of blankets - AKA, Harry Potter. I love this addition because that is such a maternal picture and Hagrid consistently throughout the series confuses all typical gender roles quite beautifully.

Dumbledore sounds relieved when he speaks, as if he was starting to worry something violent had happened to Hagrid. “At last,” he says. “And where did you get that motorcycle?”

“Borrowed it, Professor Dumbledore, sir,” says Hagrid, called “the giant” a lot at first in this book, climbing carefully off the motorcycle as he speaks. So he is careful with his size and strength - another thing that doesn’t fit his general stereotype. 

Hagrid continues that young Sirius Black, who turns out to be Harry’s actual godfather, lent the bike to him for the journey. (We find out later that this is a flagrant violation of wizarding law, a flying motorcycle. We also find out here that nobody cares.) Hagrid confirms that he has him - he has Harry Potter.

Hagrid always deferentially calls Dumbledore “Professor Dumbledore, sir.” Now Hagrid is always very careful in calling people by their proper titles, but that “sir” at the end is a mark of respect he only ever gives to Dumbledore. He also speaks with a bit of a thick, slanging West Country accent, which JK attempts to spell out - like all accents she deals with - phonetically. I would not recommend this to other writers as it can be at best difficult and confusing, at worst somewhat offensive.

Dumbledore asks Hagrid if there were any “problems.” Hagrid denies there were any - the house was almost completely destroyed, but he got Harry out before the Muggles from the village started completely surrounding the Potters’ house. (Hagrid refers to the Muggles as a “swarm,” as if they were annoying insects.) Presumably, Hagrid and Harry have then been flying since last night in order to make it here on time. Harry finally fell asleep as they were flying over Bristol.

Dumbledore and McGonagall bend forward over the bundle of blankets. Inside, just visible underneath all the blankets Hagrid has piled around him, is a baby boy, fast asleep. His hair is consistently described throughout the series as “jet black,” a particularly thick, dark, and shiny kind of black. Under a tuft of hair over his forehead, they can see an oddly shaped cut, like a bolt of lightning.

McGonagall, openly “curious,” asks in a hushed whisper if that’s where -? But she can’t finish her own sentence. Is that where Voldemort attacked Harry? McGonagall wants to know.

Dumbledore confirms that it is. Harry will have that scar “forever.” In other words, with or without Voldemort, it will always be there.

McGonagall asks Dumbledore if he can’t do something to get rid of the mark. Here, she defers to his magical expertise and talent. Dumbledore insists that even if he could get rid of the mark, he wouldn’t.

“Scars can come in handy,” he says, another veiled remark to the future. He defuses the tension by adding cheerfully and quirkily that he has one himself above his left knee that is a perfect map of the London Underground.

But what Dumbledore has next to say seems difficult even for him. He says it rather haltingly. “Well - give him here, Hagrid - we’d better get this over with.” Even Dumbledore is showing reluctance. Nevertheless, he takes Harry in his arms and turns toward the Dursleys’ house.

It’s hard for Hagrid, too. He asks haltingly if he can say goodbye to Harry. Dumbledore allows it, so Hagrid bends his “great, shaggy head” over Harry and gives him what McGonagall imagines with distaste must have been “a very scratchy, whiskery kiss.”

Then Hagrid suddenly lets out “a howl like a wounded dog.”

McGonagall hisses and shushes at him, telling him sternly that he’ll wake the Muggles if he keeps that up. Hagrid, an easy crier from the beginning, sobs out an apology as he takes out a large, spotted handkerchief and buries his face in it. He sobs that he just can’t stand it. Lily and James are dead and “poor little Harry" is “off to live with Muggles.”

For Hagrid, this clearly signals the end of times. He knows nothing about the Dursleys, but they’re Muggle and that’s enough for him.

Here we see the difference between McGonagall and Hagrid in another way. McGonagall, the woman, refuses to cry. Hagrid, the man, can’t stop crying.

“Gingerly” (see, “cautiously”) McGonagall pats Hagrid on the arm. She admits a bit impatiently that it’s all very sad, but Hagrid needs to “get a grip on himself” before they’re found out by the Muggles around them.

Dumbledore steps over the low garden wall and walks to the front door. He lays Harry “gently” on the doorstep, takes a letter out of his cloak, tucks it inside Harry’s blankets, and then comes back to the other two.

Everyone always wonders why on earth Dumbledore would leave a baby on a doorstep all night. I would agree that this seems irresponsible, but I would add something else: Though Hagrid and McGonagall don’t seem to process Dumbledore as doing anything wrong, used to trusting him, does Dumbledore do it this way because he knows Petunia is more likely to take in Harry if the boy is simply forced on her without anyone else to take care of him or anyone for her to argue with?

Because let’s treat this honestly. Dumbledore just dumped an extra baby on Petunia (and Vernon) without warning, without asking her if she could take care of him or even wanted to, and without compensation. Is it wrong that they seem to take this out on Harry? Oh hell yes. But that is in fact what happened to them. Petunia even gets the news of her sister’s death in a letter. McGonagall and Hagrid don’t seem to consider this either. It seems like everyone in this series has blinders where Dumbledore is concerned.

For a full sixty seconds the three of them just stand and look at the little bundle. Hagrid’s shoulders shake with silent, suppressed sobs. McGonagall blinks furiously as if determined not to cry. The twinkling light that usually shines in Dumbledore’s eyes seems to have gone out, leaving that same heavy dullness behind.

Let me be clear. While I do see Dumbledore as manipulative and avoiding of the truth, as well as somewhat rightfully arrogant, I don’t think the manipulative!Dumbledore people give Dumbledore enough credit in a few key areas. First, he is definitely also things like flamboyant, cheerfully quirky and eccentric, all knowingly grandfatherly, coy modest, refusing to use Dark magic, and somewhat gentle by nature - all the things I don’t see the fandom give him enough credit for. I don’t think everything else that makes up Dumbledore is just a lie or an act.

But second, I think Dumbledore does feel genuinely guilty about many of the things he does in the name of pursuing “the greater good.” Does Dumbledore feel bad leaving Harry to this fate? Yes. He feels terrible. He even cries and apologizes at the end of the scene in book five when he confesses to Harry (almost) everything he has done.

Does that mean we should feel sorry for him? Not necessarily. He still does it all. He doesn’t even tell Harry everything during that scene in book five. But in his own weird way, Dumbledore does genuinely seem to have a conscience. He’s a complicated character.

Dumbledore finally breaks the silence with a heavy, “Well.” It’s a sentence all on its own. He says that that’s done with. They have no other business here, so they should leave. He recommends they all go join the wizarding world celebrations, but he does not seem particularly enthusiastic about it anymore.

Hagrid is still muffling his voice. He agrees and says he has to take Sirius his bike back. He bids McGonagall and Dumbledore goodnight. Then, wiping his tears on his jacket sleeve, he swings himself onto the motorcycle and with a little more force than usual he kicks the engine into life. With a roar, it rises into the air and off into the night.

Dumbledore nods to McGonagall and says he expects he’ll see her soon. McGonagall blows her nose into her handkerchief and gives him no response.

An interesting question: Are McGonagall and Hagrid angry with the situation... or, even if just a little, are they angry with Dumbledore?

And then suddenly we’re in Dumbledore’s head, even if very briefly, I believe the only time we ever are. 

He turns and walks back down the street. He stops on the corner and takes out the silver Put Outer. He clicks it once and twelve balls of light speed back to their street lamps so that Privet Drive glows suddenly orange. In that moment, he can just make out a tabby cat slinking around the corner at the other end of the street - McGonagall.

He tries even harder to look, and can just see the bundle of blankets on the step of number four. It’s as if Dumbledore is forcing himself to memorize that one last visual shot, and his reasons for doing this may be numerous.

“Good luck, Harry,” he says in a low voice, alone with no one to hear him. Dumbledore seems to know Harry will need it. Then he turns on his heel, with a swish of his cloak he is gone, and a breeze ruffles the neat hedges of Privet Drive, “which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen.”

We see Harry through an above author narrator’s eyes for a split second. He rolls over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closes on the letter beside him and he sleeps on. He doesn’t know he is special, doesn’t know he is famous. He doesn’t know his own future.

He will be woken in a few hours time by Petunia’s scream as she opens the front door to put out the milk bottles. He will spend the next few weeks being “prodded and pinched” by his cousin Dudley. He doesn’t know any of this. We don’t even see the scene in which his aunt and uncle read the letter and decide to take him in, decide how they’re going to treat him.

And he can’t know that at this very moment, people meeting “in secret” - as wizards and witches always are - all over the country are holding up their glasses and saying in hushed voices, “To Harry Potter - the boy who lived!”

And this is what Harry becomes to them, the whole chapter title. He becomes “The Boy Who Lived” in all capital letters.

This moment is marked even though there is no one around to witness it - possibly the only time in the series that ever happens. At the very moment Harry Potter becomes famous in one world, he becomes an unwanted, unknowing, lower-class citizen in the other. Almost the entire series then operates from this premise.


	4. Dursley Interlude

I wanted to include something else from Pottermore. One more bit about the Dursleys before we fully dive into Harry’s story. Refreshingly, this bit from Pottermore seems mostly from Petunia’s perspective, so we have now heard from both Dursley adults.

Harry’s aunt and uncle met at work. Petunia Evans was “forever embittered” (see, “angry, hurt, resentful, felt treated unjustly”; also note that it says “forever,” meaning for the rest of her canon life she never got over this hurt) by the fact that her parents seemed to value her witch sister more than they valued her. There are interesting definition undertones here of Petunia always feeling unimportant to her parents, like she didn’t matter. So she left Cokeworth, her and Lily’s home city, “forever.” I take this to mean that Petunia didn’t even go back to her parents for their funeral, a decision Vernon evidently supported - perhaps he simply assumed Petunia hadn’t come from a good family.

So Petunia decided to pursue a typing course in London. She evidently never tried going to university, not even seeming to consider the idea in her own mind, and instead she went the secretary route. Her typing course led her to an office job, where she met Vernon when he was a junior executive. 

She saw him as “unmagical” (a huge bonus for her) as well as opinionated and materialistic - Vernon was from the beginning money-oriented and hugely focused on possessions; he also always held strong opinions. Vernon came across as very “manly” to Petunia, seemingly mostly because of his size and lack of elegance, and she was attracted to such perceived masculinity. He not only returned her romantic interest, but he was “deliciously normal.” (The “delicious” word holds sexual undertones I did not need to know about how much Petunia is attracted to normality.)

Petunia lists off things about him: his “perfectly correct” car, his “completely ordinary” and “dull” dates, his “predictable ideas” about the world and lack of interest in her own. (Vernon is said to talk mainly about himself on dates.) Petunia feels ignored and bored spitless. Weirdly enough? She seems to prefer it this way. She begins dreaming of the day he places a ring on her finger - though not of the day she places a ring on his, perhaps implying a kind of old-fashioned one-way ownership.

Vernon is described as proposing “in due course,” in other words, particularly at the proper, established time. He proposes “very correctly,” on one knee in his mother’s sitting room. Petunia accepts immediately. The only thing Petunia “fears” is what her new fiancé will make of her sister, who is now in her final year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

Vernon “despises” (see, “feels deep contempt and repugnance for”) even people who wear brown shoes with black suits. This is another piece of evidence to me of Vernon’s obsession with normal familiarity as well as a weird fixation with jarring sensory stimulation. We find out in the beginning of the next chapter that he seems obsessed with his home never changing, too.

But Petunia only considers what he will think of Lily. Lily wears long robes as a school uniform and casts spells. Petunia tries not to think about how Vernon would react to Lily; that reaction is something she herself “can’t bear to think about.”

So here we see an interesting contrast. Vernon fears and can’t bear to think about the world’s judgment. Petunia fears and can’t bear to think about Vernon’s judgment.

Finally, one evening date, they’re sitting in Vernon’s dark car as they overlook a chip shop where Vernon had just bought them a post-cinema snack. (Old-fashioned to the last and having more money, Vernon may pay for all their dates.) Petunia “confesses,” as if her sister is some kind of sin, and immediately starts crying.

Vernon interestingly never seems to consider the possibility that Petunia is lying or going mad when she says she has a witch for a sister. He believes her immediately. This could be another sign of whatever is going on inside him or it could simply be a sign of some hidden respect for Petunia’s judgment and “normality.” He is, as Petunia expected, “deeply shocked” by this news. (See definition, “surprised, upset.”) However, he tells Petunia with formal, dignified, deep sincerity that he will never hold it against her that “she has a freak for a sister.”

Petunia, who of course has called Lily a freak herself, throws herself upon him and food flies everywhere. Her reaction is described as “violent gratitude,” a weird kind of contrast between “violent” (“strong, powerful physical force”) and “gratitude” (“thankful or appreciative in return for a kindness”). Maybe Vernon gets sex that night, I don’t know. Anyway, Petunia seems to see Vernon as “kind” toward her, instead of “cruel” toward her sister as perhaps she should see him. We get an impression of Petunia here as not only resentful but self-centered.

So a meeting is arranged between Lily, her boyfriend James Potter, and the engaged couple. It goes “badly, and the relationship nose-dived from there.” James finds Vernon funny but not in the intentional way, and makes the mistake of showing his amusement openly. Vernon apparently has never been told anything about the wizarding world, an indication we also get throughout the rest of the series, which is a pity because many aspects of the wizarding world once explained might actually have sounded quite familiar to him - banks, governments, modes of transportation, etc. In any case, Vernon tries to treat James with a kindness hiding condescension and superiority, asking him what kind of car he drives. (We find out later this is how Vernon judges most people, by what kind of car they drive. So he might actually be giving Lily and James a chance.) James describes his racing broom. Vernon supposes out loud that wizards have to live on unemployment benefit, this apparently being a negative for him and also showing he only sees wizards as a weird outer-fringe of Muggles. James explains Gringotts and his vault full of solid gold.

Vernon thinks he may be being made fun of, but can’t entirely tell. James doesn’t seem to be hiding it, so is Vernon not good at reading social cues? In any case, Vernon grows angry. We don’t see the rest of the evening, but it ends with Vernon and Petunia storming out of the restaurant where they were all having dinner. Lily starts crying and James, who is only “a little” embarrassed and guilty, promises to make things up with Vernon at the earliest opportunity.

But this opportunity never comes. Petunia has felt overshadowed by Lily all her life and so does not invite her sister to be a bridesmaid, not wanting Lily’s beauty to outshine her own. Lily is deeply hurt by this. Vernon refuses to speak to James at the wedding reception, but describes him within James’s own earshot as “some kind of amateur magician.”

So here we have a vindictive side of Vernon we haven’t seen before. We don’t get James’s reaction to this comment, but as it’s mentioned as a negative it may very well be that James’s pride was hurt.

Vernon seems to have exerted minimal influence on Petunia while they were dating, but once they are married and living together Petunia grows “ever more” like Vernon. She loves their “neat square” house at number four, Privet Drive. Not only is it ordinary and uniform, but there’s something more to it and we see what that is.

Petunia loves number four because it’s not a wizarding home.

We see some of the antics Petunia lived with while growing up with Lily. Lily would leave objects lying around that “behaved strangely.” She would enchant the teapot to suddenly start piping tunes when people passed. We will find out later from Petunia that Lily showed and scattered her quirky witchiness everywhere around her within absolutely anybody’s viewpoint. Lily also had long conversations with others about things Petunia did not understand, things with names like “Quidditch” and “Transfiguration.” Feeling left out seems to have bothered Petunia almost as much as the unexpected oddness itself.

Here at number four, none of that applies.

Petunia and Vernon choose not to attend Lily and James’s wedding. While Petunia does we learn later continue to send Lily and James Christmas presents, and while she and Lily do seem to keep correspondence for a while, Petunia never contacts Lily again after the announcement of Harry’s birth. Why this is what does it is unclear - perhaps they just never have reason to speak again, as Dudley had been born a month or two previous - but Petunia gives one “contemptuous” (see, “worthless, beneath consideration, deserving scorn”) look at Harry’s birth announcement and then throws it in the trash can.

Despite this, it is clear in Petunia’s memory enough for her to remember her nephew’s name over a year later. Why is Petunia so specifically hateful toward Harry’s birth announcement? Is it because Lily and James have a baby right after getting married, instead of waiting like Vernon and Petunia did? This is unclear.

We then jump forward in time, to Petunia’s perspective on receiving Harry on the doorstep that morning. Petunia calls the “shock” (“surprise, upset”) extreme. She seems particularly affected by the news that her nephew has been “orphaned.” The letter that accompanies him relates how his parents were “murdered” - another moment that seems to affect Petunia, as it doesn’t just say Lily and James “died” or “were blown up.” The letter asks the Dursleys to take Harry in. It explains that, due to the sacrifice Lily made in laying down her life for her son, Harry will be safe from the vengeance of Lord Voldemort as long as he can call the place where her blood still exists home. This means that number 4, Privet Drive, is his only sanctuary.

“Sanctuary” - another word that seems to stick out to Petunia, a very specific descriptive term.

Before Harry’s arrival, this is how it was for Petunia. She had become the most determined of all the Dursleys to “suppress” all talk of her sister - indicating that, incredibly, the other Dursley adults did try to bring Lily up, if only to talk of her and James scathingly, and Petunia refused even to allow that. Not only bitter, which has been already established, but jealous - envying Lily everything she had - Petunia had buried two things very deep. First, her guilt about the way she cut Lily out of her life, because she knows secretly that Lily never stopped loving her. Second, her long ago hope, never confessed to Vernon, that she, too, would show signs of magic and be secreted off to Hogwarts.

But she reads the contents of Dumbledore’s letter, and in her “shock” all these things come flooding back. She also recognizes, if just to herself, how “bravely” - Petunia’s own word - her sister had died. Petunia more than anyone, with how she treats Dudley, would be able to recognize a mother laying down her life for her son.

She doesn’t want to take Harry in, and raise him alongside her own “cherished” (“protected, lovingly cared for”) son Dudley, but she feels she “has no choice.” She feels cornered, just as Dumbledore expected. And just as I expected, her decision is what seems to hold weight. She raises Harry “grudgingly” (“reluctantly, resentfully”) and interestingly, we learn that Harry spends his childhood being “punished” by his aunt. And it’s not for being his mother’s son or for being a wizard, though that certainly can’t help.

Petunia spends Harry’s childhood punishing Harry “for her own choice.” She felt cornered and she takes it out on the only person she could - the kid. So if Dumbledore had talked Petunia through all this, allowed her to have a voice, would Harry’s childhood still have happened the same way?

Another interesting tidbit. Vernon never liked Harry in the first place, that is made clear. Harry after all is a Potter and a wizard. But a part of Vernon’s dislike of Harry does also stem, like Severus Snape’s, from Harry’s resemblance to James. Vernon didn’t like James anymore than Severus Snape did, and like Severus Snape, Harry’s appearance reminds him of his father. So… what if Harry had looked like his mother? Or what if Harry hadn’t been a boy at all? Would Vernon’s paranoia with the unusual have been more obvious when it manifested itself around a wizarding person - more than that, a child - whom he didn’t outright resent?

We also get a tacit confirmation here that Snape’s dislike of Harry and his friends is genuine and does stem from Harry’s appearance - not from Harry’s parentage, or at least not mostly.

Petunia and Vernon lied to Harry about his parentage because they were afraid. Not of Harry’s magic, fascinatingly, but of Voldemort’s. Voldemort is too frightening for them to contemplate - not only being powerful but being violent and Dark - so they don’t contemplate it. They don’t even tell Harry about him. Like every subject they find disturbing or distasteful, so says JK, they simply push it to the back of their minds and ignore it. They tell Harry his parents died in a car crash so often, JK says, they almost start to believe that comforting lie themselves.

Petunia is “remarkably ignorant” about magic for being raised alongside a witch. She and Vernon share a confused idea that they will be able somehow to squash the magic out of Harry. When this doesn’t work, they run from the Hogwarts letters later on in this tale and retreat to the hut on the rock because of the old superstition that witches can’t cross water. Petunia of course saw Lily jump streams and run across stepping stones often as a child - perhaps indicating Lily, in addition to being openly emotional and quirky, loved playing outside amid nature - but this does not come to mind for her. Hagrid of course has no trouble making it across the sea, as this is just a silly myth. (One does have to wonder what other silly myths the Dursleys carry about witches.)

JK then personally calls the Dursleys “reactionary, prejudiced, narrow-minded, ignorant and bigoted; most of my least favorite things.” She wanted to suggest, at that beginning scene in the final book, that something decent - though the Dursleys have certainly not been decent so far - almost struggled out of Petunia when she said goodbye to Harry that last time. JK gives some ideas as to what it might have been. A long-forgotten but dimly burning love of her sister? The realization that she might never see Lily’s eyes again - indicating that Petunia, like Snape, does feel something when she looks into those green eyes?

But in the end Petunia is not able to admit to it. The feelings have been buried for too long. By book seven, JK implies, the damage is irreversible. It has already been done. Anyone in the psychology department would have a field day with Petunia; she represses an extremely unhealthy amount of emotion.

Vernon’s lack of ending tender emotion, JK then implies, was perhaps more expected.

And now, at last, we get to chapter two.


End file.
